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Thursday, August 13, 2015

“Clinton knows this entire campaign could collapse in a matter of days. Hillary Clinton is not her husband. She’s someone who doesn’t enjoy the work of a long political campaign. She doesn’t trust the process. Actually it goes beyond that – she hates the process. Truth be told, she hates people. Bill enjoyed pressing the flesh. Ok, not the best phrase when applied to him, but he was in his element out there in the midst of the unwashed masses. Hillary on the other hand, she gets this look in her eyes that isn’t so much about pressing the flesh, but wanting to burn it.”The Hillary campaign is setting about trying to match the fundraising pace of Barack Obama’s 2008 and 2012 outings. They have publicly indicated their desire to raise at least 100 million dollars by the end of 2015. That remarkable figure is not merely about bragging rights though, but rather out of absolute necessity.“There won’t be nearly as much free and positive press for Hillary Clinton as there was for Barack Obama. They all know that. It’s going to take a lot of money to build and maintain her image over the next several months. She’s not a low maintenance, lipstick and rouge candidate. Hillary Clinton requires major renovations that come up often and that takes serious cash to keep going. Her campaign will be on edge and in crisis mode much more often than is normal. That will be a huge burden on all those around her, and it seems is already causing Hillary to show some premature wear and tear already as well.Hillary Clinton — former first lady, senator, presidential candidate, and secretary of State — is terrible at campaigning. That, at least, is the conventional wisdom that has emerged from her recent publicity tour to support her book Hard Choices, which was widely perceived to be a trial balloon for a possible presidential run in 2016.

Her detractors cite her painful interview with NPR's Terry Gross on the topic of gay marriage; her strange comment about being "dead broke" after her husband left the White House; and her second-guessing of President Obama's dovish foreign policy, which has alarmed some important constituencies in the Democratic base.The doubts about Clinton's acumen on the campaign trail may be valid, though they are a tad overblown. But even if Clinton is a wooden campaigner, it probably wouldn't make a difference in 2016.Here is a handy rundown of all the pundits who have concluded that Clinton couldn't campaign her way out of a wet paper bag. "Clinton has never been a natural politician," Politico confidently declared, saying she "remains far more gaffe-prone than many believe." Ezra Klein wrote that Clinton's "vaguely embarrassing interviews" means she will have to "spend the next two years relearning how to run a national campaign." And MSNBC's John Flowers expressed astonishment that reporters had forgotten "the fact that Hillary is a terrible, miserable, never-once-very-good campaigner."

Clinton certainly was not at her finest these past weeks, creating controversies that she could have avoided by being more careful. But even still, is she really that abysmal a campaigner compared to, say, Mitt Romney? Or Rick "what was the third one" Perry? Jeb Bush had his own problems when he rolled out his book on immigration. And Rand Paul just showed that his method for dealing with people of different political persuasions is to literally run away from them.Then there's Joe Biden, whose perpetual used car salesman smile can't hide the fact that he is the most innovative and industrious gaffe-maker of them all. That's just Biden being Biden, you might say, but the vice president happens to represent Clinton's only plausible competition in a Democratic primary. So when it comes to potential presidential candidates, she easily makes the top tier of campaigners.Granted, she is no Bill Clinton. She is not Barack Obama circa 2008 either. But the conventional wisdom toward the end of their titanic primary was that Hillary was the one with the common touch — sharing a cry with supporters, throwing back shots of whiskey, cracking glass ceilings — while Obama was a tricky usurper who coldly hijacked the primary process with math and who was the worst bowler in America to boot.

The Last Run for HillaryAnd we haven't even mentioned the enormous reservoir of popular good will Clinton would enjoy as the only female in the 2016 field. (Before you get started, Elizabeth Warren isn't running. She just isn't.)But let's set all that aside. Let's assume, for the sake of hypothesis, that Hillary Clinton is in possession of Al Gore-levels of political awkwardness. Could a Republican beat her?Probably not. A genuine moderate would have to survive the GOP primary process without lurching wildly to the right, which, despite the ardent prayers of a small band of re-formicons, is unlikely to happen, as Damon Linker has convincingly argued at The Week. Furthermore, the House's almost comical attempt to address the recent humanitarian crisis at the border — in which right-wingers like Michele Bachmann openly crowed that they had bullied the leadership into accepting their extreme terms — shows that you don't have to be a political genius to figure out where the real power lies in the GOP.That means Clinton will enter the 2016 field with all the formidable demographic advantages that Obama enjoyed in 2012. She will face an electorate that basically wants what the Democrats want on a host of issues, including immigration reform, income inequality, tax reform, higher education, and gay marriage. Americans may have grown tired of Obama, but the policy proposals gathering dust in his desk are sure to be brandished anew come 2016 — proposals that are both bolder and fairer than what the leading reformers in the GOP have proposed.

Can Clinton mess all that up? Anything is possible. But it's useful to remember that Obama didn't exactly run a sparkling re-election campaign. He was trounced by Mitt Romney in the first debate. He often looked listless and fed up with the howling psycho-carnival that is the modern presidential campaign. The unemployment rate was at 7.8 percent in November 2012. And yet Obama easily — easily — defeated Romney.That's the electoral reality Republicans face. No gaffe is going to erase it.Jeb Bush Sinking Lower and Lower

Jeb Bush is in 114 Million Dollars in to the special interest and big lobbyist and now they are ready to make a 10 Million Dollar ad buy for him. His poll numbers just keep dropping and he makes mistake after mistake on the trail so they must try to shore him up. With more money than the rest of the GOP pack combined it was expected he would pull thru abe the candidate but a supberb showing by Donald Trump changed all that. Now the people who own Jeb must try to buy him back into contention.

Jeb Bush, in an exclusive interview with Fox News’ “The Kelly File,” rejected the suggestion that the momentum behind his likely presidential bid has slowed – calling recent polls “irrelevant” and urging those closely watching them to “take a chill pill.” GW Bush, his brother is quietly helping him behind the scenes.

Bush, though widely expected to run for the Republican nomination, has held back as several other Republicans have officially announced their 2016 campaigns in recent weeks. As they dominate the headlines, some – notably, Bush’s presumed home-state rival, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio – have enjoyed a surge in the polls.

But Bush stressed in the interview with Fox News that he’s not a candidate yet. Bush held out so the money packs could raise as much as possible and the total is well over a hundred million.

“The polls are totally irrelevant,” the former Florida governor told show host Megyn Kelly. “I’m not a candidate yet. So … everybody needs to take a chill pill on the polls until it gets closer.”Problem was it got a little closer and then Bush dropped again to as little as 5%.

In the roughly 22-minute interview, Bush addressed Common Core, immigration reform and his family’s political dynasty and how his brother was right on the war – all issues posing early challenges for him in a potential GOP primary. And he defended his 2016 exploratory efforts – first announced in mid-December – while taking a swipe at the campaign for Democratic front runner Hillary Clinton.

“I go do town hall meetings, don’t screen the questions, don’t have a protected bubble like Mrs. Clinton does, don’t have town hall meetings or roundtable discussion where I pick who gets to come and I screen the questions, and the press has to behave a certain way,” he said in his first full, on-camera TV interview this year.

While Bush continues to stay visible, his poll numbers have jumped around, peaked and fallen, since he emerged as an initial GOP front runner earlier this year.

Fox News polling released late last month showed Rubio enjoying a bump after his mid-April campaign announcement, polling at 13 percent in the race for the GOP nomination. Bush slipped down to 9 percent in that survey. Today Rubio is around 5% and sliding.

The average of polling on RealClearPolitics.com shows Bush slipping, but his advantage over the rest of the field slimming considerably. He now pulls 16 percent of the vote but leads Rubio by just 1 percentage point, according to RealClearPolitics.com.

Bush, in the Fox News interview, continued to defend his stance on the English and math standards known as Common Core while acknowledging conservative criticisms.

He argued that schools must be held to higher standards and pointed to the program’s success in Florida, where he was governor from 1997 to 2007.“I respect people having a view,” Bush said. “But the simple fact is, we need higher standards. They need to be state driven. The federal government should play no part in this either, either in the creation of standards, content or curriculum.” "Each State should create and fund it's own school system and have full control of content and curriculum."

He argued that only one-third of U.S. students are college or career ready and that Florida under his leadership led the country in learning gains, includes vastly improved graduation rates, however he offered no numbers.In response to criticism by conservatives that he supports a form of amnesty for illegal immigrants, Bush said he backs legal status -- but not citizenship -- for those who have entered the country illegally. Bush added for the country not to worry he would take care of the problem.“A practical solution of getting to fixing the legal system is also allowing for a path to legalized status, not necessarily citizenship,” he said.

Nevertheless, he suggested that the country must take some kind of common sense approach to what to do with an estimated 11 million people living illegally in the United States, particularly children of illegal immigrants.“What are we supposed to do, marginalize these people forever?” Bush asked.He also suggested he would undo President Obama’s executive actions that suspend deportation for some illegal immigrants, under comprehensive reform legislation.On the foreign policy front, Bush said that he would have authorized the 2003 invasion of Iraq, like his brother, President George W. Bush did, and said Clinton – who backed the authorization for use of force as senator -- also would have.“And so would almost everybody that was confronted with the intelligence they got,” he told Megyn Kelly.

He also acknowledged that he indeed uses his brother as a foreign policy adviser but said he is not the only adviser. Jeb said GW was always the smartest one in the family when it came to foreign policy. And he dismissed criticism that winning the White House would only extend the family’s presidential dynasty that started with his father, George H.W. Bush, in 1989.“I love my brother, and I respect his service,” Bush said. “I have not been in Washington and am not as smart as GW".